Plan Termination

[Gary]

A company sponsors a DBPP for its two employees and excludes himself, the owner.

The company is dissolving and is in the process of terminating its DB plan.

The plan is covered by the PBGC or at least has been paying annual premiums.

The plan assets are $300k and the plan benefits on termination basis are 450k.

The employees are willing to just take the benefits covered.

To my knowledge an employee cannot waive benefits even if they are willing to and thus as far as I can see the only way to terminate the plan is in the form of a distress termination.

Any other creative ideas out there?

Thanks.

[SoCalActuary]

Why be creative? That's the way the system is intended to work.

Unless those two employees become 50% owners, the employer has a liability for the benefits.

Either the owner has the funds to fix the problem, involving contributions to the plan that may take more than one year, or the owner declares distress termination and hopes to avoid the liability.